“Motivation is a fire from within. If someone else tries to light that fire under you, chance are it will burn very briefly.” – Stephen Covey.

Towers Perrin, the corporate benefits consulting firm, surveyed over 1000 American workers and found the following:

Only 51 percent of all workers trust their organizations to tell the truth in employee communications

Only 48 percent of all workers with more than five years of tenure believe their companies are honest in their employee communications

Only 44 percent of all workers over age 50 trust their organizations to tell them the truth in employee communication

Organizations then wonder why worker productivity decreases, employee loyalty is at an all time low, and human resource situations increase. Your employees see everyday, at least in their eyes, the following:

Record profits, yet massive layoffs

Hearing how important they are, yet having their jobs outsourced

Experiencing changes to their jobs, yet not being asked for their ideas

Being told how they are doing a great job, yet being yelled at for mistakes in front of colleagues

No wonder there is tension in the workplace. When I work with organizations, the following three concerns are the ones usually express:

Because of these concerns, there is a divide, professionally, emotionally, mentally, and physically between the employees and their supervisor/manager, etc., which leads to lost productivity.

The following are five team building secrets that will increase your credibility with employees and produce outstanding team results for your organization:

Be Honest for Better Team Building – You owe it to your team members and to colleagues to be honest. Tell your team members exactly where they stand within the organization. Be positive, yet don’t sugar coat it. Once your team members know where they stand, use this as a stepping stone for improvements and solutions you can work on together.

Be Consistent for Better Team Building – Be consistent with your communication among team members. You will lose credibility with team members if they see you communicate differently with different team members concerning the same situations. For example, if you berate an team member (which I’m sure you would never do) for a mistake, yet say nothing to another team member for the same mistake, you will lose credibility will all of your team members. (Read the rest of the article at Team Building)